Friday, May 26, 2017

Reconstruction by S. A.

In the first part of the first
half of the documentary titled Reconstruction show the events following
the end of the civil war and the dealings of the freedmen and the
plantation owners who came to claim back their land and the freedmen who
learned their lives in this country is going to be long and hard. To
begin during the war in order to get the slaves off the union armies
tail Sherman signed field order fifteen and essentially gave every
freedman forty acres and a mule since the army had no need for them.
After a couple years the land granted to the freed man after being
cultivated now belonged to them. Until the southern landowners mainly
the wealthy plantation owners came back and told all the freedmen to
leave the land the government that field order 15 had granted them.
Northerners believed that the treasonist southerners should be punished
but the North believed the road the recovery and reconstruction was
through rebuilding the south rather than punishing them. The author
shows the actual field order that had been archived by most likely a
military scribe. Shows one special case which was an island only
inhabited by blacks and no whites were allowed guarded by an black
militia it only seen as trouble for the government to deal with such
sensitive matters.The author wanted to show the
hardship of the south as it was difficult and unpleasant time for
everyone in the south. For those who were seeking their pardons for the
government were being hung out to dry and it became evident they would
need to have official help to sort out all the conflicts of men and
freedmen.The government formed the freedmen's Bureau to settle any
disputes with the southern landowners and the freedmen who lived on the
government seized lands. The only voices missing would be of the
landowners who wouldn’t be pardoned so easily since Andrew Johnson
wouldn’t handle out the pardon without the groveling he thought they
were required to perform. You can hear the voices of the slave who were
utterly disappointed to learn that the land that once held their hopes
dreams were going to be taken from them and the road they had ahead of
them would be worse than the slavery they were forced to endure.Ever
since the book of Frederick Douglas we saw from a primary source of
someone who could read and write and had experienced slavery and his
harshest possible treatment any human will undergo. From the harshest of
religious slave owners to ones who would allow their slave to leave the
land to complete labor contracts. Until he found his opportunity to
escape and he ran to the north where he became a published author under a
different name and showed the world what it is to be a slave. Questions
i’m left wondering whether or not the island of the all black community
ever came to combat the local white population. A population of around a
thousand black slaves versus the an entire gathering of the local white
supremacists back then it was normal to look down on blacks but now i
guess that would be the correct term for them. Overall the situation for
every freedman look grim from owning land and their very own community
being taken away the next couple year will hold even more suffering in
pain that will only grant their freedom as second class citizens.